


The View from Here is Pretty (As I Step Off the Edge)

by kamyia



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Communication, Drunkenness, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Pre-Slash, or lack thereof
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-20
Updated: 2014-01-20
Packaged: 2018-01-09 11:02:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1145192
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kamyia/pseuds/kamyia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Patrick Kane lacks communication skills and is a maudlin drunk on a park bench in January. In Chicago.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The View from Here is Pretty (As I Step Off the Edge)

He had been trying so hard, honestly he was. To be better, to be stronger, to _live up to your potential, Kaner for god’s sake_! And for a while there he’d been good, so good. Really. But now he couldn’t remember how he gotten here, or even where here was other than a cold bench in some park. 

Things had been going so well at the start of the season was the thing. The Hawks had all been riding high on the knowledge that they’d _won the fucking Stanley Cup_ for the second time and confident in gunning for a third. Sure, they couldn’t win them all but they’d been doing really fucking well. 

Then something had snapped. Maybe it was Jonny reverting back to Captain I-am-trying-too-fucking-hard-to-imitate-Sidney-Crosby’s-emotionless-robot-façade, or maybe Sharpy being so god damn excited about his second daughter (who was god damn adorable ok, and no one could really blame him for wanting to hang around her rather then a bunch of hockey players), or even the mounting pressure of the Olympics. 

Any way you split it, Patrick’s moral compasses had fucked off so when they’d flown home from Vancouver and Shawzy had yelled in his ear that they were _gonna get so wasted Kaner, I don’t even have the fuckin’ words_ after the legit terrible game against the Canucks, well what hell right? He’d gotten boarded so many fucking times he deserved a night off from sainthood. Once the other team had realized that the worst retaliation they were going to get was Jonny glaring menacingly it had turned into a free for all. 

Lying on the bench was cold, Patrick mused idly. The cold helped the buzzing in his head, so he should probably stay here until that stopped. Then he’d get up and see where he was. Maybe even find out where Bolly and Shawzy had fucked off to, because he didn’t remember much after the three of them stumbling out of the third club laughing their heads off. 

After a few minutes he realized that the buzzing wasn’t just in his head. He giggled as he fumbled for his phone. Extracting it from his pocket, he made a face at the picture of Jonny’s dumb face that was lighting up the screen. Jonny was probably calling to yell at him. Again. He let the phone ring through. 

 _You have 5 missed calls_ showed up on the screen once the vibrating stopped. Huh. He scrawled through to see 4 of them were from Jonny and 1 from Bolly. He called Bolly first, Jonny could fuck right off. Bolly picked up on the third ring. 

“Dude! Where the hell are you?” Patrick frowned. Bolly sounded a lot less drunk then he should be. 

“Park somewhere? Hell if I know. Where the hell did you bastards leave me?” He could hear Bollig’s put-upon sigh on the other end. 

“We didn’t, you ran off when we turned our backs. You’re fucking slippery, you know that?” Pat smiled slightly at that. 

“I’m a sneaky ninja.” 

“Yeah, yeah. Seriously, what park are you in.” Patrick shrugged. 

“Seriously, I don’t know. It’s got trees and stuff.” 

“Thanks, totally helpful. Wanna walk to a street and tell me where you are?” Patrick laughed, laying back down. 

“Nah, s’comfy here. Just gonna wait a bit then find a cab.” 

“Patrick. It’s like, 25 degrees or something. Fucking cold. You need to get moving.” 

“Jesus christ, look at you being all responsible and shit. I’m fine.” 

“No, you’re not Kaner. Come on, get up and move your ass.” 

“You’re not the boss of me, asshole.” 

“Yeah, but you’re not answering Jonny’s calls.” 

“Shit, you didn’t…” 

“Of course I fucking did! And do you know how humiliating it is to have to phone your Captain to say ‘oops, we may have lost that piece of shit you’re calling a friend’? Because it was fucking rough dude.” 

“My heart bleeds for you Bolly it really does. Thanks for nothing.” 

“Motivated to get up?” 

“Hell no.” 

“Gonna do it anyway?” 

“Fine asshole. I’m up. Happy?” He grumbled a bit, getting to his feet and swaying. 

“Fucking ecstatic. Walk to a street Kaner and tell me where the hell you are.” 

“I’m going, I’m going” Patrick shuffled along the path, humming in discontentment. “Hey, you got Shawzy with you?” 

“Yes. As if having to deal with your drunk ass isn’t enough, I’ve got the mutt too. At least when he crashes it’s in a bed, not a park bench in the middle of November.” 

“My ass is fantastic and you know it.” 

“You keep deluding yourself there Kaner.” Patrick wandered along towards the streetlights. He squinted at the lights on the street. 

“There’s a Starbucks! Think it’s open? Fuck the diet, I need caffeine.” 

“It’s like 2 in the god damn morning, the Starbucks is not open. What’s the street sign say Kaner?” Patrick squinted  at the bright lights when he emerged onto the sidewalk. There was an intersection nearby that he ambled towards. “Kaner!” 

“Jesus, you’re impatient. I can’t read the sign yet, don’t get your panties into a twist.” Edging closer he tried to make the letters stop swimming. “Michigan and Madison.” 

“Jesus fuck! How did you even get in to Millennium Park? No, I don’t want to know. Listen, I’m going to hang up, but I need you to stay put. Can you do that? Someone’s coming to get you.” 

“Seriously? You know I can find a cab, right?” 

“Stay fucking put Patrick.” And he hung up. Patrick sighed and dropped his phone back into his pocket. He rummaged around in his other pockets. He still had keys and wallet so that was a bonus. He could easily get a cab and just go home, fuck Bollig. Still, seemed like _work_. He sat on curb and leaned back so he could see the sky. Cloudy, no stars. Not very fucking exciting. 

After few minutes of wondering what he could do to make the sky more interesting, a car pulled up. 

 He heard the car door open and “Jesus fucking Christ, Pat” in an all too familiar, long suffering voice. Patrick closed his eyes. Maybe if he couldn’t see Jonny he would go away. 

“Of course Bolly fucking called you. Bastard.” Talking to Jonny probably wasn’t going to make him disappear. Sure enough, a warm hand clamped down on his shoulder. 

“Get up. I’m taking you home.” 

Patrick wanted to be stubborn, to fight and refuse to go along. But really, it was fucking freezing and his buzz was turning into a fucking painful headache. Jonny’s car would be warm and home was good. Home had a bed and pain killers. And hopefully a distinct lack of Jonny. 

He sighed piteously, opened his eyes, and stumbled upright, lurching towards the car. Jonny’s hand stayed on his shoulder, steadying him. After falling into the passenger’s seat he closed the door so he could lean against the glass and closed his eyes again. He heard Jonny hesitate and then walk around to the driver’s seat and get in. 

“Buckle up Pat.” 

“Fuck you.” Patrick said, but without any real venom behind it. The night was catching up to him because he was way too tired to fight. He struggled briefly with the seat belt before Jonny huffed impatiently and gently buckled him in. “I’m not fucking four years old.” 

“Could have fooled me.” The car rumbled as it started and glided down the street. 

Patrick kept his eyes closed and Jonny didn’t speak to him. 

The next thing he knew, Jonny was jostling his shoulder. “Get up Pat, we’re here.” Patrick unbuckled himself clumsily and opened the door. He blinked at the parking lot. 

“This isn’t my building” 

“No. I’m not leaving you alone to drown in your own vomit.” Great. The dream of lack of Jonnys was quickly crumbling. 

“You said you were taking me home!” 

“Close enough.” 

“Is not! I wanna go home Jonny, take me home.” Jonny crossed his arms and stood in front of Patrick implacably. 

“Not happening. Come on, stop being so fucking whiny and get up. I swear I will let you sleep.” Sleep did sound good, but Jonny’s apartment would be bad. Jonny’s bed, even the one in his guest room would be so very bad. 

Patrick didn’t get a chance to further state his disagreement as he was manhandled out of the car and pushed towards the elevator banks. 

He meant to stand up straight and ignore Jonny, really he did. But once inside the elevators he found himself closing his eyes and leaning against the warm body beside him, letting Jonny take some of his weight. And what the hell. He was drunk, he could probably get away with it. 

Once they reached Jonny’s floor, Patrick found himself forcefully herded into the apartment and dumped on to a bed. He didn’t open his eyes to see if it was the guest room or not. He didn’t think he could deal with the answer. 

 

As he fell headfirst into sleep, he could almost imagine Jonny’s hand in his hair and a voice saying “It’s OK Pat. I’ve got you now.”

* * *

Patrick woke up despite his best efforts to ignore the world. He burrowed under the blankets to try and escape from the light. Some asshole had left the blinds open. Unfortunately, the same asshole was waiting for just this maneuver and yanked all the blankets away. Patrick would glare at Jonny, but he was too busy keeping his eyes firmly shut. 

“Get up fucker. It’s too early to argue.” Patrick made a sound that must have been interpreted as agreement, because Jonny’s footsteps faded away. 

After a few miserable moments, Patrick decided that he wasn’t going to feel better by just lying in the too bright light and attempted to stumble upright. It sort of worked. Well, his feet were on the floor anyway. 

With the sun firmly behind him, Patrick slowly opened his eyes, and squinted at Jonny’s spare room. Same as the last time he’d crashed here. 

When he finally reached the kitchen, Jonny was scowling at the frying pan as it refused to create the perfect egg-white omelette. Patrick noisily dropped into a chair and thunked his head onto the table. The smell of eggs made him want to hurl. 

A minute later, a plate was slammed down next to his head, making Patrick wince. 

“Eat. Now.” 

Even Patrick could admit the noise he made was kind of pathetic. 

“Patrick. This is how it’s gonna go. You eat. I eat. Then we talk about how fucking lucky you are that there aren’t a thousand stories in the news today about your epic meltdown.” 

Grimacing, Patrick picked his head up and grabbed the fork Jonny was pointing at him menacingly. 

“Fine. Whatever.” Jonny’s scowl grew deeper, but he didn’t say anything as they both ate slowly. 

Patrick tried to procrastinate on the upcoming sure-to-be-terrible conversation. He chewed slowly, chased down every bite on his plate, and tried to make a move to actually wash dishes. No such luck, as Jonny, with his stupid-ass scowling face, grabbed the plate from his hands and propelled him towards to living room. 

“Sit” he said, as he pushed Patrick onto the couch. “Listen. I’m going to talk. I will then ask questions. Then, and only then are you permitted to speak. Do you understand?” Patrick nodded, sagging into the cushions. Jonny took a deep breath and seemed to brace himself. 

“You’ve been really good Pat. You have. You made some stupid decisions which ended badly, but you owned up to it. You changed and took responsibility. It reflected well on your performance on and off the ice. But you’ve got to know that people are just waiting for you fuck up again. No, don’t argue” Patrick closed his mouth, biting back the protest he was about to voice. “Not because they think it’s inevitable, but because it makes good news. And you cannot afford that. The organization has stood behind you before, but there will come a point when you are not worth it.” Jonny rubbed his face and sighed. “Look, we all know that getting drunk and doing dumb shit is gonna happen. But as your Captain, I have to tell you that you’ve got to be careful. You wanna drink, fine, whatever. But you’ve proven that you can’t always be in control of what you do, and that means that you’ve gotta have someone to watch out for you. You can’t just fuck off and do whatever, ok?” 

Jonny finally sat down beside Patrick, who by now couldn’t actually look him in the eye. He knew Jonny was right. He’d been avoiding getting drunk for so long, but there was this itching under his skin, something he couldn’t quite kick. He could usually ignore it, really he could. 

“I know the game was rough.” Jonny said “But it wasn’t just rough on you. You gotta talk this shit out with someone Kaner.” Patrick snorted. 

“Because we have such a good history talking about our feelings?” Jonny looked…sad. 

“Maybe it’s time to change that. And we’ve got to start somewhere, so come on. What set you off?” 

“I don’t know, a bunch of things! You and Crosby are trying to compete for ‘World’s Most Emotionless Hockeybot’, Sharpy’s wrapped up in his family, we had a fucking terrible game, and all my bruises are named ‘Ryan Kessler’!” 

“You know the Canucks have been fucking violent all year.” Patrick scrunched his nose up in dislike. 

“Yeah, and we’re too afraid to retaliate after that shit with Calgary.” 

“Q gave us strict orders, we couldn’t engage. No matter what. It was hard as fuck watching it, trust me.” Jonny had this god damn earnest look in his eye, and yeah, Patrick knew he was right. He sighed and flopped gracelessly into Jonny’s side. 

“Yeah, I know. I’ll come to you next time I want to get hammered oh wise one.” He nuzzled comfortably into Jonny’s neck. 

“Good,” Jonny said. And Patrick could hear the smile and relieve in his voice. “That’s all I needed to hear.” A hand worked its way into Patrick’s hair “Now go to sleep. Someone woke me up in the middle of the night and I’m tired.” 

That sounded like an ideal plan. Maybe talking about feelings wasn’t all terrible.

**Author's Note:**

> So, I'm just predicting that the Canucks/Blackhawks game is going to be a disaster, but that may or may not be right.
> 
> I swear, this started out as angst, but then mutated suddenly into adorableness, so, sorry?


End file.
